Welcome to the ACT-IT-OUT project.
ACT-IT-OUT is an Erasmus+ project funded that will run for two years. It brings together 8 different organisations from 7 EU countries – Italy, Ireland, Croatia, Romania, France, Germany and Cyprus.
About ACT-IT-OUT
What is culture?
What is culture? According to the Oxford Dictionary, culture encompasses “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively”. Our culture therefore includes our values, our ideologies, our belief systems, and things that we regard to be true, based on our lived experiences and the experiences of others in our culture. What else does our culture mean for us? To begin with, it is in the way we act, it is reflected in the words we use, the food we eat and the clothes we wear. It also exists in invisible values and beliefs that decree the accepted and recommended behaviours specific to each culture or societal group. We may be able to see obvious manifestations of a culture:
customs, traditions, habits that differ to our own – but fail to understand the components that are invisible to the human eye: beliefs, knowledge, ideas. This is why cultural intelligence is so important, it helps us to see, acknowledge and appreciate those unseen, intangible aspects of what makes our cultures unique.
Cultural intelligence as a skill is increasingly valued in today’s globalised society. Investing in cultural intelligence allows us to understand the impact that culture can have on societies and on social behaviour. Being able to comprehend and accept differing cultures and their diversity, is one of the keys to success in all areas of our lives. It allows for societal inclusion which is a fundamental component for a just and equitable society.
The three components that identify cultural intelligence are cognitive, emotional and physical. The cognitive (mind), is when a person with a high level of cultural intelligence is able to establish learning strategies allowing them to identify means of a shared understanding. The emotional component (the heart) is simply a matter of trust and motivation. A person with a high CQ is completely confident that they will be able to overcome difficulties and is highly motivated to do so. The physical (the body) component is made up of cultural gestures that you tend to do. For example, the way you greet others differs across cultures – some people shake hands, others kiss and even hug when others do not touch or look into each other’s eyes. To build the cultural intelligence of adult learners across Europe, the ACT-IT-OUT project proposes an innovative approach to using creativity in cultural education. By mapping these three components to the proposed 3Ps Programme – Photographs, Poems and Performances.
In the proposed 3Ps Programme, ACT-IT-OUT partners will use the medium of Photography to support adult learners to develop their cognitive awareness of culture – to capture photographs that represent understandings of different cultures, and the support adult learners to develop their own understanding of their own culture and how this impacts their own perspective of the world, and of other cultures. To address the emotional component, based on the photographs that adult learners take, project partners will support learners to plan and script short poems that will aim to capture their feelings and motivations related to cultural issues. Penning these poems will also support adult learners to evaluate their emotional responses to certain aspects of culture, and to self-assess their motivation for developing their cultural intelligence. Lastly, to address the physical component, adult learners will be supported to develop their skills as performers. In the performance resources developed as part of this programme, learners will be encouraged to develop their skills to perform the poems that they have written, but also to include actions, gestures and movements that are synonymous with their own culture, and with other cultures.
The ACT-IT-OUT partners believe that this is a truly unique format for educating adult learners to develop their cultural intelligence.
In essence, ACT-IT-OUT aims to support adult learners across Europe to use these artistic disciplines to develop their own cultural intelligence and to promote an appreciation of cultural diversity throughout European society. To achieve this aim, we will develop three core intellectual outputs and we will work with our associate partners to develop a project that is relevant and fit-for-purpose.
The Partners
SPEHA FRESIA SC
Speha Fresia cooperative company, non-profit organisation, acts since 1983 at national level in the fields of lifelong learning, labour active policies, local sustainable development, and social research.Having a social base made up of 50% women, since the 90swe have been interested with our projects aimed at women to work on their inclusion in the labour market and in the business creation. The training experiences with migrant women have created over the years the strong and common belief that non-formal and informal adult education is a formidable tool to learn about different cultures, to discuss the daily challenges that unite many women, to provide us with mutual support and merge our knowledge to improve our lives.
Future in Perspective LTD. (FIP)
Ireland
Future In Perspective Ltd. is a private company based in the border region of Ireland specialising in the areas of education and e-learning, media production, social inclusion and community development. Through our work on national and EU funded projects, we have engaged and supported local youth groups, migrant communities, older persons, and individuals who have been absent from education to re-engage with service providers and mainstream education and training offerings. We also have expertise in supporting businesses and entrepreneurs in niche markets such as the creative, cultural and green sectors to develop sustainable business models. In addition, we have collaborated with young people and adults to deliver a range of diverse programmes in the areas of media production and career management – supporting the next generation of creative individuals to build and sustain successful careers in the sector.
Ustanova za obrazovanje odraslih Dante
The Adult Education Institution Dante has been carrying out foreign language learning programmes for 26 years and is well-established in the wider local and regional community. We have extensive experience in LLP programmes and Erasmus+ KA1 and KA2 projects, with more than 40 contracts signed with AMPEU, 4 Grundtvig education partnerships and over 250 mobilities realised for the purposes of education, professional training and cooperation with other European institutions. Dante has also organised CEI conferences and is a member of EAEA. Languages offered: English, German, Italian and Croatian for foreigners.
ASOCIATIA PENTRU EDUCATIE SI DEZVOLTARE DURABILA
The Association for Education and Sustainable Development (AESD) is an educational centre whose goal is to promote lifelong learning in society in order to facilitate the growth of active citizenship, increased social cohesion and higher levels of employment for all age groups. The association´s activities are:
- The implementation of formal and informal lifelong education courses
- Building an organized system of consulting throughout its region
- The management and provision of information and training
One of the key activities of the association is the on-going analysis of the needs of the region and the structuring and establishing of a network of local centres for distance learning. It pursues this strategy to ensure that quality education provision can be easily accessed in even the most disadvantaged areas. The association compliments the mainstream educational network offering more flexible, individually tailored and market-focussed courses for the lifelong learning of adults. One of the goals of the association is to give marginalized young adults access to lifelong learning and to provide job experience in order to help them obtain permanent, long-term employment. The city of Calarasi, where AESD is based, is one of the least developed regions of Romania.
Générations Solidaires Val d'Oise 95
GSVO 95 was founded in June 2010, with the aim to act for intergenerational solidarity and for sustainable development in the department of Val-d’Oise. The main activities of GSVO 95 are socio-cultural intergenerational learning activities aimed to foster social integration of various target groups. Through collective training, workshops, and sociocultural activities, GSVO 95 promotes social mix, tolerance, and equality.
Skills Elevation FHB
Skills Elevation FHB (Berlin) is an SME founded in 2016 with a mission to provide an alternative educational methodology to support the social, emotional and cognitive development of marginalised groups and front-line educators to integrate new pedagogic approaches into their everyday practice. The company is committed to providing a creative space and a ‘living lab’ for educational innovation, experimentation, and development with a view to offering new methodologies and resources to address persistent social, economic and integration issues that pertain in all EU Member States.
NEOPHYTOS CH CHARALAMBOUS (INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENT LTD)
The IoD is an education and training organization established 2003. Its vision is to contribute to the improvement of the society’s quality of life through the continuous development of the individual, the family, and the human resources of businesses and educational organisations. The Institute promotes resilience, mindfulness, mental health, and a positive outlook to life, the boost of creative skills, soft skills, increasing performance, resilience and experience of happiness. Its mission is to offer training, mentoring and counselling for human resources in schools, enterprises and other organisations in the public and private sector. The team of the Institute consists of 15 full-time and part-time project managers, researchers, trainers, lecturers and administrative staff. Since 2003, more than 500 workshops for teachers and young people and about 1200 lectures to parents have been delivered in Cyprus and Europe.
A.T.C.L. Associazione Teatrale fra i Comuni del Lazio
ATCL – Theatrical Association between the Municipalities of Lazio – is the multidisciplinary circuit of distribution, promotion, and audience development of the Lazio region. ATCL was established in 1981 in order to ensure a constant cultural offering throughout the Lazio region; the Italian ministry of culture MIBAC, the Region Lazio (regional authority) and over 60 municipalities are its active members. ATCL endorses the reopening of abandoned theatres and the use of historic buildings and archaeological sites; it promotes interdisciplinary and contemporary languages; it supports new talents; it offers training programs to workers, artists and managers and it fosters the presence of artists within schools and universities.
SVEB – Swiss Federation for Adult Learning
The Swiss Federation for Adult Learning is the Swiss national umbrella organisation for adult education and operates as a professional association to promote lifelong learning in Switzerland. We are represented through offices in all three Swiss language regions. We manage the national training-of-trainers system and are responsible for eduQua, the national quality label for adult learning providers. For more than 60 years we have pioneered adult learning in Switzerland. We have campaigned for an effective and forward-looking adult education system and devoted ourselves to achieving a high level of quality in adult learning opportunities throughout Switzerland. We set high standards in the work we do, which includes developing innovative approaches to adult education and the conditions surrounding it.
SVEB groups more than 750 members that are private a nd state institutions for adult education, associations, in-house training departments and individuals involved in adult training and learning.
Learning Materials
IO1 - 3Ps Programme - Photographs, Poems and Performances
The ACT-IT-OUT consortium will provide a suite of alternative educational resources developed through different performing arts disciplines to support adult educators addressing the rise of cultural intolerance in Europe, and the need to invest in alternative education programmes to support the development of cultural intelligence in adults in the communities where partners are located. Partners will develop bespoke embedded-learning resources and enquiry-based learning resources that are attractive and engaging and that will support target groups to build their cultural intelligence, as the first steps towards a more tolerant, accepting and equitable society for all in Europe.
A total of 36 digital learning resources will be produced; 12 resources addressing each of the three artistic disciplines included in the 3Ps Programme: Photography, Poetry and Performance; with 18 resources developed at introductory level and 18 resources developed at advanced levels. The resources developed will be produced by FIPL in all partner languages as short AVATAR videos, with a script and a synced video to animate and engage the learner in the digital learning resource. Each video will be accompanied by a handout for the learner – to help them to either enhance their cultural intelligence or their artistic skills, depending on the focus of the video – and will also include a short 3-page tutor manual that will support adult educators who complete the Induction Training Programme to be able to apply each of the 3Ps learning resources in their teaching practice with adult learners.
IO2 - Induction Training Programme for Adult and Community Educators
Partners will develop a bespoke induction training programme to ensure that adult educators are fully trained to deliver the ACT-IT-OUT 3Ps Programme – Photographs, Poems and Performances, and to harness the full potential of the online learning environments developed by project partners. Once the learning outcomes and templates have been developed for the 3Ps Programme, and partners have an idea of the practical supports that educators will need to deliver this programme, GSVO will define the key learning outcomes of the induction training for adult educators and the skills, knowledge and competences to be developed. GSVO and IOD will between them produce the Learner Manual containing all the required learning content. The induction training will be developed as a practical training programme. The Programme will comprise 3 modules, which will be delivered as a series of 6 half-day workshops and supported by an additional 7-hours of online or self-directed learning.
IO3 - ACT-IT-OUT MOOC and CoP
The ACT-IT-OUT MOOC & Community of Practice will serve as a one-stop-shop of learning materials developed to raise the level of cultural intelligence and diversity awareness, and to address the issue of racism and xenophobia in EU Member States, through the innovative application of artistic techniques and practices. The MOOC will also present the full suite of induction training materials developed for adult and community educators.
The MOOC & Community of Practice will include a learner zone where users who complete the 3Ps Programme can share their Poems and Performances with their peers, and with other adult learners who complete the Programme in other partner countries. This will be a key aspect of the Community of Practice for learners.
The ACT-IT-OUT MOOC will become a benchmark for cultural intelligence education for adults and will provide them with the tools and resources to develop their own level of CQ – Cultural Intelligence and thereby contribute to addressing the widespread issues throughout our society. By its very nature, the ACT-IT-OUT MOOC will be transferable to any interested party in any EU Member State.
Events
ACT-IT-OUT Performance Workshops
The aim of this event will be to engage adult and community education providers, front-line integration support workers, representatives from local creative organisations and cultural stakeholders and to introduce them to the range of innovative training materials – namely the 3Ps Programme, the Induction Training Programme and the OERs presented through the ACT-IT-OUT MOOC – developed by the ACT-IT-OUT partners. This event will be aimed at practitioner level and will aim to present the impact achieved in developing the cultural intelligence of adult learners through the use of innovative artistic activities, on a local level in each partner country.
Final Conference
A final conference will be organised and hosted in Italy in month 23 which will coincide with the final meeting of the project and will target at least 60 participants. The aim of the Final Conference is to present the ACT-IT-OUT project, its objectives, results and final outputs at the level of regional education decision and policy makers.
The transnational conference is an important event; it is when partners will come together to officially launch the ACT-IT-OUT project materials, and its unique approach to developing cultural intelligence through using artistic disciplines in adult education. Presenting this novel approach as an example of good practice to policy and decision-makers working in the field of adult, community and cultural education will be the main focus of this final conference.
Testimonials
The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Project Number: 2020-1-IT02-KA227-ADU-095329
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